October 4, 2017

Said Arnold Schwarzenegger, after the Supreme Court oral argument yesterday, which he attended. The "problem" in this case is political gerrymandering, and "those who created the problem" are elected politicians, who draw the legislative districts thereby setting up the game that they get to play in the next go 'round.

Of course, the problem of self-interested legislators is very well known, but the argument on the other side is that if the Supreme Court gets involved, it will create a different problem, and then — if we take the Einstein quote to heart — who will be able to solve that?

But is that really an Einstein quote? People love to pass along quotes they think are from Einstein because Einstein is the one name everyone associates with GENIUS! and we have this delusion that if a genius says something, on any subject, it must be genius. Consequently, the "Einstein" label gets slapped on some counterfeit goods.

The quote whipped out by Arnold Schwarzenegger is listed — at Wikiquotes — among the disputed Einstein quotes. And the wording — translated, I presume — is significantly different:

We cannot solve the problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them

"Einstein's famous saying in Copenhagen", as quoted in a FBIS Daily Report: East Europe (4 April 1995), p. 45

Following that quote, those who created the problem could solve the problem if they used a different kind of thinking.

The problem these days with quotes is that someone will always dispute them. Being the reactionary that I am, I tend to go with the oldest sources--preferably contemporaneous--that I can find. And preferably not from the internet.

If they solved problem, they would piss somebody off who liked the status quo and there'd be one less thing to campaign on. Better to talk about it endlessly, blame the opposition, and let the problem fester.

Ahnold is such a fucking embarrassment. Crappy liberal governor who ran as a Republican. Global warming absolutist. Backed the commission that now nonpartisanly redistricts CA to favor liberal democrats only, and there in USSC trying to impose his backwards thinking (with fake quotes naturally) on WI. Onward WI.

People love to pass along quotes they think are from Einstein because Einstein is the one name everyone associates with GENIUS! and we have this delusion that if a genius says something, on any subject, it must be genius.

I believe I read that Einstein often intoned to the women around him "Go make me a sandwich." Pure genius! Let it be written, let it be done!

Good on you for chasing down that quote, didn't ring true to me either. Einstein had respect for those who came before him, even though he often didn't cite them in his groundbreaking papers when he could have.... But he was young.

I am betting that the spirit of it is more like this quote from lefty Andre Lord

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

"Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children."

"Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it's one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children."

Wasn't that the guy who flunked out of divinity school, and whom this article was written about?

Well, if we're willing to admit that a district's representative no longer has any real role in representing that district, I'd say that the obvious solution is a parliamentary election of the House. Each part puts up their slate, and they get the number of representatives off the top of their slate corresponding to their percentage of the votes.Fortunately, state boundaries aren't so easy to move around.

Its the ultimate gerrymandering. Hillary is President of California, but not the US.

Gerrymandering is anything that stops democrats from total control.

they have a rock solid liberal block on the High Court, so putting them in charge of electing democrats is more promising then selling their ideas, given the can peel off a hack like Kennedy from time to time.

In that regard, gerrymandering isn't any different than quotas. If democrats aren't elected, then the districts are wrong.

As far as quotes refer to Einstein, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to Einstein.I'm pretty certain Heisenberg said that.

Following that quote, those who created the problem could solve the problem if they used a different kind of thinking.That implies it could be solved, and that they'd want to--two facts not in evidence here.

There's one way to actually solve the problem of gerrymandering, but it'll never happen since there's nowhere near enough political will to do so nor will there ever be. As I said yesterday, the one clear way would be to do away with pure geographical apportionment. It would then have to be replaced with some other form of apportionment (like party list proportional representation). Of course, any form of representative apportionment will have it's issues, but gerrymandering seems to be worse than rounding issues associated with other types.

Schwarzenegger's political career will be forever defined for me by his determination that California's same-sex marriage law should be decided by the courts, rather than by democratically-enacted laws.

Maybe Gorsuch should ask the Democratic lawyers to explain why the Democrat voters are all clustered in the same places and why the Democrat party isn't doing anything to broaden their appeal to other areas.

AJ Lynch said... Maybe Gorsuch should ask the Democratic lawyers to explain why the Democrat voters are all clustered in the same places and why the Democrat party isn't doing anything to broaden their appeal to other areas.

10/4/17, 2:29 PM

Would be a great conversation!

Gorsuch: So, why did the DNC force all of those registered Democrats to cluster together?

Democratic lawyer: The DNC did not do that, it does not have that power.

Einstein was less than a genius in some areas outside of physics. https://www.csicop.org/si/show/myth_of_consistent_skepticism_the_cautionary_case_of_albert_einstein

Interestingly, Einstein refused to join or endorse an international commission headed by John Dewey to investigate the Moscow Show Trials (a consistent skeptic would seek both confirmatory and discrediting evidence) and would subsequently write to Max Born that “there are increasing signs the Russian trials are not faked, but that there is a plot among those who look upon Stalin as a stupid reactionary who has betrayed the ideas of the revolution” (quoted in Born 1971, p. 130). Born would later comment that most people in the West at the time believed the trials “to be the arbitrary acts of a cruel dictator.” Einstein, however, relied upon information from people he described as “those who know Russia best.”

Here is my proposal on congressional districts: "After Congress has assigned each State the correct number of seats for the House of Representatives based on the Census, the Legislators of each State shall determine the boundaries for their Congressional Districts. The boundaries of each District must be contiguous. Race, ethnicity, age, and income cannot be used to determine District boundaries. The widest gap between the least populous District and the most populous District in each State shall be one thousand people."

Unless and until we are able to remove most of the current "Legal" system, race MUST be considered when determining District boundaries, Serket. Those responsible for drawing said boundaries are required by the Supremes to ensure sufficient Black districts to satisfy the Communists. The Hispanic districts must also be ensured, but that happens rather easily within the limits of your proposal. Barrios are a third-world thing.